This is great. Kaeley, you always surprise me. I braced myself, being your godless pro-choice friend, but I absolutely love this. TBH the single most patronizing and counter-productive thing ANY pro-life person can ever, ever EVER say is "just let the babies be adopted." But fix the next 10 months of their lives, and let women figure out what they want, they can make different choices. IMO the single best thing anti-abortion activists could do to get what they want is stop harassing women outside the clinics with this kind of talk. I enthusiastically endorse your plan instead.
One thing I want to take issue with, though, and I think it's just because we come from different worlds, is that no one, and I really do mean no one in any clinic ever, tells any woman that "your life, career, and future will be ruined if you go through with this." (Maybe it happened somewhere, but everyone I knew in that world would absolutely object to the message.) That is the message *society* sends, constantly: "if you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em." I don't even think of this as a particularly "right wing" message, either. Capitalism, for all its ups, has its downs too, and this is one of those.
To actually reduce the chances of a woman having an abortion, fix this for her.
A quick story. About 15 years ago, a young woman I knew went to the Christian pregnancy crisis center. She thought really hard about it and had an abortion (she was 18). Nine months after the test, two cans of Similac arrived in the mail. A year later, two more cans. This has been going on 15 years and she has never had a baby. She has been receiving the cans of Similac anonymously from that well-intentioned Christian organization.
She has a busy life (honestly one of the hardest working people I have ever seen) and only a couple of times has remembered to donate it before it expired. No one was helped with this. Someone felt good about doing it, maybe, but no one was helped.
Whereas sounds like you got real help, and look at the difference it made.
This is great. Kaeley, you always surprise me. I braced myself, being your godless pro-choice friend, but I absolutely love this. TBH the single most patronizing and counter-productive thing ANY pro-life person can ever, ever EVER say is "just let the babies be adopted." But fix the next 10 months of their lives, and let women figure out what they want, they can make different choices. IMO the single best thing anti-abortion activists could do to get what they want is stop harassing women outside the clinics with this kind of talk. I enthusiastically endorse your plan instead.
One thing I want to take issue with, though, and I think it's just because we come from different worlds, is that no one, and I really do mean no one in any clinic ever, tells any woman that "your life, career, and future will be ruined if you go through with this." (Maybe it happened somewhere, but everyone I knew in that world would absolutely object to the message.) That is the message *society* sends, constantly: "if you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em." I don't even think of this as a particularly "right wing" message, either. Capitalism, for all its ups, has its downs too, and this is one of those.
To actually reduce the chances of a woman having an abortion, fix this for her.
A quick story. About 15 years ago, a young woman I knew went to the Christian pregnancy crisis center. She thought really hard about it and had an abortion (she was 18). Nine months after the test, two cans of Similac arrived in the mail. A year later, two more cans. This has been going on 15 years and she has never had a baby. She has been receiving the cans of Similac anonymously from that well-intentioned Christian organization.
She has a busy life (honestly one of the hardest working people I have ever seen) and only a couple of times has remembered to donate it before it expired. No one was helped with this. Someone felt good about doing it, maybe, but no one was helped.
Whereas sounds like you got real help, and look at the difference it made.
Thanks for engaging my blog so thoughtfully. You’ve given me some things to chew on, and I appreciate it.